Posted on 04/10/2007 10:07:35 AM PDT by xzins
"Rather than"??!! Short reading list, I suspect.
The false dichotomy of pessimistic eschatologies like amillennialism and dispensationalism seem to want to see everything as "either/or" rather than "both/and".
Christ is reiging both in heaven and on earth by the power of the gospel over the nations.
"Now when the thousand years have expired, Satan will be released from his prison." (Rev. 20:7)
The apostasy at the end happens after the "thousand years" is concluded. So it does not need to be "either/or" as the amils seem to suggest, or "rather than".
"Little children, it is the last hour; and as you have heard that the Antichrist is coming, even now many antichrists have come, by which we know that it is the last hour." (1 John 2:18)
Postmillennialists can read the Bible, you know.
I’d realy like an answer to my questions...
We fight in Iraq to maintain and preserve U.S. defense, protection and stability. Do you also believe that...
1) The spread of Christianity to a Muslim nation will truly benefit that region?
2) Bibles being smuggled into China will truly benefit that continent and enrich the lives of all who hear the word of God?
Christians need to be warned of Satan who takes on many guises. This is much simpler than a lot of people want to make it.
When this country was founded, Postmillennialism was the dominant belief. No coincidence it's taken a beating as the Gospel gets shouted down from within as well as without.
Are people really so deaf and blind that they can't see some temporal powers of this world want us all to believe ONLY in spiritual bad guys? Because what this ultimately does is frees the real, human bad guys on the planet to keep right on deceiving and manipulating the masses.
I would say you are wrong. An eagerness to proclaim that Jesus is King of Kings and Lord of Lords is the heart of our evangel. The proclamation of a Jesus who confines His work to "the heart" lobotomized and emasculated evangelical Christianity over the course of the last century. If all I want is a "personal spiritual adviser," I can go visit Madam Rose the tea leaf reader. For a few extra dollars, she'll even throw in a few extra thrills.
Discovering that Jesus is Lord over the universe around me as well as the "universe" within me was truly liberating, transforming my walk with God, my family, my vocation, and my effectiveness as a Christian. You might say the proclamation the "Jesus is Lord" (not "will be any day now," but is) can restore the Christian man's mind, and balls. Let me cite G. K. Chesterton's rollicking rebuttal to the value of mere mysticism, from his book Orthodoxy:Of all conceivable forms of enlightenment the worst is what these people call the Inner Light. Of all horrible religions the most horrible is the worship of the god within. Any one who knows any body knows how it would work; any one who knows any one from the Higher Thought Centre knows how it does work. That Jones shall worship the god within him turns out ultimately to mean that Jones shall worship Jones. Let Jones worship the sun or moon, anything rather than the Inner Light; let Jones worship cats or crocodiles, if he can find any in his street, but not the god within. Christianity came into the world firstly in order to assert with violence that a man had not only to look inwards, but to look outwards, to behold with astonishment and enthusiasm a divine company and a divine captain. The only fun of being a Christian was that a man was not left alone with the Inner Light, but definitely recognized an outer light, fair as the sun, clear as the moon, terrible as an army with banners.
My soul is far safer in the keeping of my Lord, than it was when I sought a cosmic guru.
From a piece by Gary DeMar entitled, “The Devil’s In the Details” —
“A few days after having sinus surgery, Amanda Bower of Time magazine called American Vision to set up an interview with me. She was working on a four-part article on the debut of Tim LaHaye’s tenth volume in the Left Behind series, The Remnant: On the Brink of Armageddon. I spent about an hour on the phone giving her an alternative perspective. The interview went very well.
When I first picked up a copy of the July 1 issue of Time, I expected to find at least some mention of the interview. Nothing. Instead, there were more than ten pages of what looked like advertising copy for the series. Since when is Time magazine not being critical of a Christian movement that is generating a billion dollars in sales?
Just this year, LaHaye signed a $45 million, four-book deal with Bantam-Dell, whose address, ironically, is 666 5th Avenue, New York, NY. Secular publishers are bottom-line oriented. Bantam wants a piece of the $1.77 billion book publishing industry, even if its from Christians. They’ll hold their nose as they make their bank deposits. Why make Christians angry since they’ll be the ones who will help Bantam make back that $45 million. To further insure that the investment pays the necessary dividends, LaHaye had to be introduced to the secular market as a likable guy even though he believes in a Christian America and opposes abortion and homosexuality. One article even showed Tim and Beverly hugging. The feminist and homosexual writers and editors at Time must have puked as they put the make-nice story together.
My negative interview would have kicked sand in their face. Publishing deals had been made. LaHaye had to look good no matter what else he might believe. AOL Time Warner, owner of Time magazine, has a strategic alliance with Barnes & Noble. B&N operates more than 1000 super stores and mall-based stores, and operates barnesandnoble.com. Go into any B&N and you will find stacks of Left Behind books. B&N has made a fortune with Left Behind. AOL Time Warner has set up a Christian book division in Nashville, Tennessee, home of Christian publishing powerhouses Thomas Nelson and Broadman & Holman. As one publishing insider writes, “Ruffling feathers at AOL, B&N, Amazon.com, or Time Warner just doesn’t have any appeal.”
One last connection. Bantam is the U.S. subsidiary of Bertelsmann, the third largest media company in the world, with majority ownership of barnesandnoble.com, AOL online services in Europe, France, and German. What’s good for Tim LaHaye is good for AOL, which is good for AOL TimeWarner, which is good for Time magazine and vice versa
For years I wondered why the liberal Oxford University Press published the Scofield Reference Bible. I have come to believe that the best way to get Christians out of politics is to neutralize them. Dispensationalism is the best neutralizer going. Millions of Christians, most of whom are politically conservative, will see no reason to get involved politically because the rapture is just around the corner. Oxford knew this at the turn of the twentieth century, and AOL Time Warner knows it today.”
"It would be easy to show that at our present rate of progress the kingdoms of this world never could become the kingdom of our Lord and of His Christ. Indeed, many in the Church are giving up the idea of it except on the occasion of the advent of Christ, which, as it chimes in with our own idleness, is likely to be a popular doctrine. I myself believe that King Jesus will reign, and the idols be utterly abolished; but I expect the same power which turned the world upside down once will still continue to do it. The Holy Ghost would never suffer the imputation to rest upon His holy name that He was not able to convert the world."
- C. H. SPURGEON
"...I have come to believe that the best way to get Christians out of politics is to neutralize them. Dispensationalism is the best neutralizer going..."
It's no coincidence Ronald Reagan was largely funded, philosophically supported and theologically nourished by the same Christian Reconstructionists who are now marginalized by the American press.
It is also no coincidence America flourished in the 1980's, the Berlin Wall came down and the 70-year-old Soviet Union was dismantled.
A friend sent me a copy of your February 15, 1999, issue of the Standard Bearer on the subject of preterism.To raise a standard one must have a standard. It's one thing to disagree with a position and those who hold it, it's another thing to lie about what people actually believe. The ninth commandment is still in force. Your editorial is an example of very poor scholarship. It's embarrassing to think that it was written by a seminary professor who is supposed to be preparing students for ministry and truth telling. I will be using it as an example for my students how not to argue. You do your cause no favor by printing such half truths.
Let's have a debate at your seminary. Have your students decide who's telling the truth. Assign them Last Days Madness.Let's see if they come to your conclusions. They should also read Ken Gentry's Before Jerusalem Fell.
I did not use Russell for my research. I was most influenced by the Hebraist scholar John Lightfoot, one of the participants at the Westminster Assembly. He, along with many other commentators, showed that Matthew 24 and II Thessalonians 2, to name just two passages, have a preterist fulfillment. If you read my Last Days Madness and follow its arguments, you might not be so quick to misrepresent a brother in Christ. Will you also attack C.H. Spurgeon for his endorsement of Russell? (See the first reprint edition by Baker.) What about Baker Book House for twice reprinting it? And then there's R.C. Sproul and his endorsement. In fact, he wrote the foreword to Baker's latest reprint edition. Why didn't you mention Sproul and his preterist conference with nearly 4,000 in attendance? Are you afraid that your entire case would be considered suspect if people learned that Sproul holds a similar position and stood with a number of reconstructionists on this issue?
Why don't you do substantive exegesis instead of name-calling.
You state that Jesus' coming is "near." What do you mean by "near"? You never tell your readers.
Hope to read better arguments in the future.
Gary DeMar
President, American Vision
Atlanta, GA
A member of our editorial committee alerted me to your February 15 editorial, "A Timely Question About 'Preterism.'" It was so twisted in its depiction of the Christian Reconstructionist position that I prefer to assume you are simply misinformed for, certainly, one would otherwise be guilty of slander to so egregiously misrepresent the documentable view of Christian Reconstruction. For example, David Engelsma sweepingly declares: "Christian Reconstruction is committed, willy-nilly, to the full-blown, consistent preterism that strips the church and the Christian of all hope and all salvation."This is flatly wrong. Christian Reconstruction and "consistent preterism" are antithetical positions, and we made this point categorically in the July, 1997 issue of the Chalcedon Report. Christian Reconstruction embraces the orthodox Christian Faith, crucial aspects of which the "consistent preterists" deny. Some Christian Reconstructionists hold that certain parts of Matthew 24 and the Apocalypse were fulfilled in AD 70, but all of them affirm the future physical Second Advent of Christ, resurrection of the just and unjust, and final judgment. That is, all are orthodox eschatologists. If they were to adopt "consistent preterism," they would thereby abandon Christian Reconstruction - and, for that matter, orthodox Christianity.
Nobody at Chalcedon is a preterist - certainly not as this is today defined. Rushdoony and I hold that most of Matthew 24 and the Apocalypse describe events of much of the interadvental era, including, to be sure, the destruction of Jerusalem. (I myself think Matthew Henry's view is quite on target.) You assert that Russell's view in locating the Second Advent at AD 70 is heretical. We agree, and do not in any way endorse his pernicious work, The Parousia. While some Christian Reconstructionists have more recently accepted a mild, orthodox form of preterism, this interpretation is in no way endemic to our position.
Perhaps to you the Hymenaen heresy ("consistent preterism") offers a convenient issue by which to dismiss our consistently Reformed approach to the Faith, and to advertise your own highly defeatist and implicitly Manichean amillennialism. In any case, if you are committed to attacking our position, please have the courtesy to attack our distinctives: orthodox, catholic, Reformed Christianity; VanTilian presuppositionalism; biblionomy; postmillennialism; and dominionism.
Preterism has never been a distinctive of Christian Reconstruction.
Your readers deserve to hear the facts of this letter.
(Rev.) Andrew Sandlin
Editor, Chalcedon Report
Vallecito, CA
Amen. This has been our experience, too.
When a person realizes that the Holy Spirit is truly guiding his walk, he is strengthened by that knowledge and walks a little straighter, tackles problems more assuredly, and sleeps better knowing God is in control, always confident that "he which hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ."
Say not ye, There are yet four months, and then cometh harvest? behold, I say unto you, Lift up your eyes, and look on the fields; for they are white already to harvest. And he that reapeth receiveth wages, and gathereth fruit unto life eternal: that both he that soweth and he that reapeth may rejoice together. And herein is that saying true, One soweth, and another reapeth. I sent you to reap that whereon ye bestowed no labour: other men laboured, and ye are entered into their labours." -- John 4:34-38"Jesus saith unto them, My meat is to do the will of him that sent me, and to finish his work.
“I was most influenced by the Hebraist scholar John Lightfoot, one of the participants at the Westminster Assembly. He, along with many other commentators, showed that Matthew 24 and II Thessalonians 2, to name just two passages, have a preterist fulfillment.” Gary DeMar
“Some Christian Reconstructionists hold that certain parts of Matthew 24 and the Apocalypse were fulfilled in AD 70,” (Rev.) Andrew Sandlin
Well, which is it?
Great find in rebuttal, TC.
Let's have a debate at your seminary. Have your students decide who's telling the truth.
Wonder if this ever happened? Kudos to all those who propose a debate, and boos to all those who "flee the interview" ("Fargo.")
Which is what? I don't see an either/or in those two statements.
“Oh, waaaah, but it doesn’t feeeel to meeee like Jesus is in control.”
Either they have a preterist fulfillment or only parts of them are fulfilled, which is it?
This is flatly wrong. Christian Reconstruction and "consistent preterism" are antithetical positions, and we made this point categorically in the July, 1997 issue of the Chalcedon Report. Christian Reconstruction embraces the orthodox Christian Faith, crucial aspects of which the "consistent preterists" deny. Some Christian Reconstructionists hold that certain parts of Matthew 24 and the Apocalypse were fulfilled in AD 70, but all of them affirm the future physical Second Advent of Christ, resurrection of the just and unjust, and final judgment. That is, all are orthodox eschatologists. If they were to adopt "consistent preterism," they would thereby abandon Christian Reconstruction - and, for that matter, orthodox Christianity...
...if you are committed to attacking our position, please have the courtesy to attack our distinctives: orthodox, catholic, Reformed Christianity; VanTilian presuppositionalism; biblionomy; postmillennialism; and dominionism.
Preterism has never been a distinctive of Christian Reconstruction.
Amen and Amen!
If you have to reach down that low, then maybe you're out of ammunition.
Is that the best you have?
Ya right. If everyone agees with you they’re better “walking in the Spirit”.....Sad to see you
blown about by every wind of doctrine. Now you’re a preterist. A movement hostile to the Judaism. Doesn’t
seem like walking in the Spirit to me.
By preterist I take it you mean partial preterist, otherwise I have a different answer.
Like dispensationalism or amillennialism or any other –ism, orthodox/partial preterism is not monolithic.
Speaking as a partial preterist, the details as to which parts of (for example) Matthew 24 have or have not been fulfilled in the events of AD70 is a matter of discussion and interpretation. Some take all of Matthew 24 as being fulfilled. Others, like myself, see the AD70 fulfillment only up to v. 34. V. 36 and beyond refers to the second coming.
That's my view, and your mileage may vary.
This thread resulted from a silly comment about the early church fathers.
But there is alot of whining from the futurist camp at times.
"Oh, Jesus can't reeeeally be reigning cuz I don't seeee Him reigning" and stuff like that.
Good stuff though. Gets the interactive juices flowing.
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